Winner of the APALA Asian/Pacific American Award for Young Adult Literature
An ALA-YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Book
After a classmate commits suicide, Kana Goldberg a half-Japanese, half-Jewish American wonders who is responsible. She and her cliquey friends said some thoughtless things to the girl. Hoping that Kana will reflect on her behavior, her parents pack her off to her mother's ancestral home in Japan for the summer. There Kana spends hours under the hot sun tending to her family's "mikan" orange groves.
Kana's mixed heritage makes it hard to fit in at first,...

In a Japanese seaside neighborhood lives Jason Parker:
a sixth grader
one year older than his classmates
a stinking foreigner to some classmates
an orange belt in aikido
a big brother
Jason Parker is just a boy trying to get through his days with calm and courage. If only everyone around him would let him.

Falling into the Dragons Mouth is a beautifully spare novel in verse by Holly Thompson, full of detailed illustrations by Matt Huynh, about one boy's life--a story that will resonate with anyone who has ever struggled to fit in.